After two years of negotiations, Oregon is poised to adopt controversial
new rules to protect farmworkers and their families from pesticides
drifting over their homes and living areas.

The proposal addresses safety in cases where labor camps border, or sit
within, fields or orchards that will be sprayed.

Rule making has taken two years and been delayed three times, as state
regulators try to balance the workers’ safety with costs to their
employers.

Both sides are unhappy with the result.

“We’ve gotten harsh criticism of this rule, this rulemaking, this
agency, this administrator, from both sides of the issue,” said Michael
Wood, administrator of Oregon OSHA. “But I genuinely believe that action
on this rule will mean that workers are better protected in the state
than they have been, and are better protected in Oregon than they are in
the vast majority of the country.”

In 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency updated its farmworker
protection rules for the first time in a quarter century, and required
states to meet or exceed them.

Among the provisions is a requirement that pesticides may not be applied
if a worker or other person is within 100 feet, to protect against
accidental drift.

That means farmworker families living within 100 feet of fields or
orchards would have to be evacuated during spraying.

“The growers came to us and said it’s really going to be disruptive to
our workers if we’re spraying early in the morning. They were concerned
about several times a year rousting their workers out of housing,” Wood
said.

Oregon proposed a compliance alternative that would allow farmworker
families to “shelter in place” in their homes with doors and windows
closed and heating-cooling systems turned off until 15 minute after the
spraying is complete.

But farmworker advocates protested, saying many homes in labor camps are
not airtight, with some lacking doors and windows. They pointed out that
many of the homes have communal bathrooms, kitchens and laundries that
also would be off limits during spraying. Outdoor cooking areas,
clotheslines and play areas would not be protected.

“The people who are putting food on our tables, who are working hard
from before the sun rises to sunset, those people should be able to feel
safe when they’re sleeping in their beds, when they’re cooking their
food, when they’re in the shower, when they’re walking with their kids
through the complex,” said Lisa Arkin, executive director of Beyond
Toxics, a Eugene advocacy group.

“It feels to us, to spray people where they’re living is inhumane,”
Arkin said.

Advocates asked for a spray buffer between any spraying and the entire
living complex.

Oregon's revised proposal doesn’t go that far. But it does include
additional provisions that go beyond the EPA requirements:

·
Employers must provide covered plastic bins outside homes for workers to
store shoes, coats and gloves, to avoid tracking pesticides indoors.
They also must construct sheds or storage areas to protect personal or
household items from contamination.

·
If the pesticide applicator is required to use a respirator, then
workers and families would be required to evacuate to 150 feet away
until 15 minutes after the application is complete.

·
Employers must provide an information station to notify farmworkers of
start and stop times of spraying that could impact housing.

In November 2107, the Columbia Gorge Fruit Growers filed a formal
objection to the proposed rules, saying they could cost its 440 members
millions of dollars annually in lost productionif trees have to be
removed or farmworker housing relocated.

Mike Doke, the association’s executive director, said Oregon should
target the evacuation provision only at growers with substandard
farmworker housing. And there’s no substandard farmworker housing in
Hood River or Wasco counties, he said.

Oregon OSHA disagreed with the cost estimate, saying the rule doesn’t
call for either of those actions.

Scott Dahlman, policy director for Oregonians for Food and Shelter, says
the rules are unnecessary, particularly the requirement to evacuate if
the pesticide applicator is required to use a respirator.

“We haven’t seen a huge problem in Oregon with off-target drift in
general,” Dahlman said, noting that the Oregon Department of Agriculture
has issued only a few fines for violations.

Oregon’s rulemaking comes as the Trump administration has signaled it
will attempt to roll back some of the provisions of the 2015 federal
farmworker protection standard.

Ramon Ramirez is president of the Woodburn-based farmworker union PCUN,
the largest Latino organization in Oregon. He led delegations to
Washington D.C. for 25 years trying to get the federal protections
passed.

“Farmworkers are literally dying because we’re working with these
chemicals,” Ramirez said. “We’ve got to start realizing that we eat
cheaply compared to others throughout the world. While Americans benefit
from that, farmworkers are paying the price.”

Oregon OSHA has received nearly 800 comments on the proposal, Wood said.

The agency is accepting comments through March 15, and expects to make a
decision in early April. It’s uncertain when the new rules would take
effect.